Work & Careers

To talk about work in three timeframes: the job you did, the job you do now and the job you're going to do.

The time words decide the tense: el verano pasado and el mes pasado take the preterite, normalmente and los sábados the present, and el verano que viene and el año que viene take ir a + infinitive. For trabajar: trabajé (I worked), trabajo (I work), voy a trabajar (I'm going to work). The usual mistake is the present after a past time word: el verano pasado trabajé, not trabajo. Watch the accents too: trabajó (he or she worked) is not trabajo (I work).

Exam tip: The top language marks in AQA's 90-word task, Pearson's 80-90 and 130-150 word tasks and Pearson's conversation need all three timeframes.

To talk about the job you want: quiero, espero or pienso + infinitive.

Quiero, espero and pienso go straight before the infinitive, with no a or de: quiero ser abogada. Pensar + infinitive means "to plan to": pienso estudiar ingeniería. After ser, jobs take no un or una: quiero ser médico, not quiero ser un médico. Make the job match you: médico or médica, enfermero or enfermera.

To describe your ideal job and what it would be like.

The conditional means "would": add -ía, -ías, -ía, -íamos, -íais, -ían to the whole infinitive (trabajaría, ganaría, sería). Irregular verbs use the same short stems as the future: tendría, haría, podría. Every ending has an accent on the í. The singular forms (trabajaría, sería) are on both tiers; the plural ones (trabajaríamos) are Higher. Mi trabajo ideal sería... is a good opener to learn as a set phrase.

To describe work experience you have done and what it was like.

The preterite is for finished actions: what you did and for how long (trabajé dos semanas en una tienda). Learn the irregular forms you'll need most: hice (I did), fui (I went, and also I was) and fue (it was). Fue una experiencia útil sums up the experience as a whole; to describe what it was like day to day, use the imperfect: era aburrido.

To say what a job involves without saying who: se trabaja, se necesita.

Se + the él/ella form of the verb makes a general statement, like "you" or "one" in English: se trabaja mucho (you work hard), se gana bien (the pay is good). At Higher, with a plural noun, the verb goes plural: se necesitan idiomas (you need languages). It sounds more natural than la gente trabaja and works for any job.